After the Crash

Sometimes life can change in an instant.

It’s been over two decades since that moment. The moment when a drunk driver came barreling towards us at over 100 miles per hour and hit us head on. The moment when time stopped. When everything was light and dark at the same time. When the sound of the crash was so loud it was almost silent. I remember the smoke and the fear and the wail of ambulances in the distance.

Climbing out of that totaled car with minor cuts and bruises was surreal. It felt like God had literally lifted me out of my life for those seconds and returned me back whole. In the days following the crash, we learned that the drunk driver had survived, but he had killed his best friend who had been in the passenger seat beside him. I wanted to speak to the driver, but I didn’t know why or what exactly I wanted to say.

Instead I found out his address and sent him a letter. I was in the car that you crashed into. I am sorry that you lost your best friend. I can’t imagine the pain you are in now. I hope you heal and find a different way to live.

I don’t know why I sent that letter. I didn’t know him and didn’t really want to know him. But he had changed my life. He had inadvertently divided my life into ‘before the crash’ and ‘after the crash.’ Before I had even begun to really grow up, I already knew what few teenagers know: I could die. It could happen in a second. It almost did. For whatever reason, my life would always be intertwined with the life of that driver just by the force of that moment in time. When my life and his life changed forever.

I thought about the accident recently when I heard Joshua Prager’s TED talk, “In Search of the Man Who Broke My Neck.” His story is leagues away from what I experienced. He has suffered far more than anyone should have to. But what he has done with that suffering teaches us all what courage is after life irrevocably changes. When Josh was 19, a tragic bus accident in Israel left him a hemiplegic. He had to learn how to breathe on his own again, and then he spent four years in a wheelchair. After he graduated college, he taught himself how to walk with a cane. He became a journalist and wrote hundreds of articles with just one finger. Twenty years after the accident, he went back to Israel to find the Arab driver who had broken his neck.

“Back on highway 1, I envisioned what awaited. Abed would hug me. Abed would spit at me. Abed would say, ‘I’m sorry.’ I then began to wonder, as I had many times before, how my life would have been different had this man not injured me…Who was I? Was I who I had been before the crash, before the road divided my life like the spine of an open book? Was I what had been done to me? Had Abed not injured me, I would now, in all likelihood, be a doctor and a husband and a father.

"I would be less mindful of time and of death, and oh, I would not be disabled, would not suffer the thousand slings and arrows of my fortune. The frequent furl of five fingers, the chips in my teeth come from biting at all the many things a solitary hand cannot open. The dancer and the dance were hopelessly entwined.”

What Josh really wanted was a simple apology. He wanted to hear the words: “I’m sorry.” Could those words make up for the thousands of losses since that awful spring crash? Could an apology repair his broken dreams? Could it heal his shattered bones or restore his limited mobility? No. But he wanted to hear it anyway. He wanted to look the man in the face. The man who had been driving recklessly on a road with 27 traffic violations already on his record. The man who had paralyzed two people and killed another.

Prager only knew his name and the town where he lived. So he picked up a potted yellow rose and a Turkish coffee and drove to the Arab town to find Abed. But when Josh finally sat down in Abed’s living room, he didn’t get the apology that he was seeking. Instead Abed spoke about his own suffering. He kept repeating how the accident wasn’t his fault. Josh realized that Abed was never going to apologize. He wasn’t going to even acknowledge Josh’s disability or pain.

But instead of anger, which would have been completely justified given the circumstances, Josh said that at that moment, when he was finally face to face with the man who had taken away so much from him, he realized that Abed was not a good or a bad person. He was just a limited person who was living an unexamined life. And that is when Josh was finally able to say good bye.

“There is much I wished to say to Abed,” Josh says in his TED talk. “I wished to tell him that, were he to acknowledge my disability, it would be okay. For people are wrong to marvel at those like me who smile as we limp. People don’t know that they have lived through worse, that problems of the heart hit with a force greater than a runaway truck, that problems of the mind are greater still, more injurious than a hundred broken necks. I wished to tell him that not only paralyzers and paralyzees must evolve, reconcile to reality, but we all must – the aging and the anxious and the divorced and the balding and the bankrupt and everyone.”

Many of us have a ‘before’ and an ‘after.’ An instant when life irrevocably changes. After my car accident, I kept thinking back to those milliseconds when the swerving headlights were colliding towards me. How I saw my life – its short past and its unknown future – contracted into that moment, like light being pulled back into itself. Sitting on the side of the road, beside the crumpled cars and the crowd of people who had come to help, I was grateful for the first time in my life just to be alive. I was no longer a teenager who thought that time had no limits. I saw the limit and felt it explode around me.

With the smoke-drenched air filling my eyes, I searched tirelessly for purpose.

I didn't know why God had saved me. I didn't know why I was able to extricate myself from a burning car with only cuts and bruises along my arms. But I knew there must be some reason. And beginning with that night, sitting beside the wreck with the smoke-drenched air filling my eyes, I searched tirelessly for purpose. Why was I here? What was I meant to do now?

I had to hold onto and renew that gratitude that I woke up with the morning after the accident. The way I stood beside the window and stared in wonder at my hands, my legs, my arms. I was so grateful for the sun and the clouds and the trees and my ability to see them. I was so grateful for life, for being given another chance.

But sometimes I forget that instant. I forget how precious time is. I forget what a gift life itself is. I don't want to live an unexamined, limited existence. I don't want to lose the clarity of that instant in time. One moment that held a lifetime of lessons. So I reach for it, hold it, and try to use its power to grow.

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About the Author

Sara Debbie Gutfreund received her BA in English from the University of Pennsylvania and her MA in Family Therapy from the University of North Texas. She has taught parenting classes and self-development seminars and provided adolescent counseling. She writes extensively for many online publications and in published anthologies of Jewish women's writing. She and her husband spent 14 wonderful years raising their five children in Israel, and now live in Blue Ridge Estates in Waterbury, Connecticut, where Sara Debbie enjoys skiing and running in her free time.

Visitor Comments: 9

(6)
Nancy Kallitechnis,
May 10, 2013 5:58 PM

I have a different opinion than Prager of the man who injured him. Prager says he concludes that Abed wasn't a good or a bad person, but just someone who didn't examine his life, yet that's assuming people don't have a moral responsibility to examine their life and actions. If people don't examine life to determine what's good and what's evil then they won't know differences between good and evil. And if they can't distinguish good from evil then there's no self-control to avoid doing evil and they will continue to commit more and more evil acts till they fall into the abyss.

Thus, it is in society's best interest to teach people the difference between good and evil, otherwise civilization will collapse and chaos will ensue. Also for individual salvation, and even earthly happiness, it's always in the best interest of the individual to know how to distinguish between good and evil, lest they be led astray by the Devil. For how can they avoid the Devil's lures if they can't tell the difference between God and the Devil? Therefore, people like Abed should be held accountable for not examining their lives which leads them to treat victims like Prager heartlessly.

(5)
Jared,
May 6, 2013 7:11 AM

GOD is good - ALWAYS & GOD is never in a hurry but right on time.

(4)
Anonymous,
May 6, 2013 4:36 AM

G-d and Time....What life changing accidents reveal

Near death accidents, make us realize we are not in control, G-d is. Life and Death are in the power of His hands only. What I escaped with was the deep joyful Revelation: "The Only Thing that Matters is G-d!!!" Not a one of the things we humans think is important is living was important in the moments I knew I was facing death and came out alive. Never before or after have I felt such JOY as the feeling of being with G-d, that He was with me during that process. Yes, life is divided into before and after. But I promised myself to keep this realization in mind after this experience....Life is short and not a second more is for certain. When we face death it is clear what has been true all along: The ONLY thing that matters is G-d.

(3)
Anonymous,
May 5, 2013 7:04 PM

Life changes

I believe G_d has a purpose for ALL of our lives. It is his desire that we look to him. The story is one of remarkable favor in that only one person perished and others lived. I would ask G_d to reveal himself and why this possibly happened!!

(2)
Anonymous,
May 5, 2013 10:34 AM

I was thinking about so many of the questions the author asked, and how life is so fleeting and how one's circumstances can change for the better or worse quite literally in the blink of an eye, as I sat to daven yesterday for the healing and recovery of Moshe Bentzion ben Leah Rachel, who was hit by a car as he was bicycling. Please keep him in your prayers!

(1)
Alan S.,
May 5, 2013 9:46 AM

Far be it from me to presume that I know better than Mr. Prager in judging Abed, the man that broke his neck, on whether he is "not a good or bad person". Mr. Prager is, after all, giving TED talks, and I am not. This said, I would differ with Mr. Prager in saying that, yes, Abed is, by the facts presented, a 'bad' person. As Jews, we understand that there are indeed good and ethical people, and evil and bad people. We are told that a terrorist is a terrorist, regardless of whether he fights in the name of religion or for one particular nation; you can't call a terrorist a 'freedom fighter'. So, Abed, who has a long history of causing death and destruction with a car, is in fact a 'bad person'. Whether he examines his life or not, Abed is 'bad'. In this instance, a 'good' person, after realizing he or she can't drive a car properly, would stop driving. (I well understand that this is a simplistic look at the larger question of labelling people 'good' or 'bad'. I am only looking at the basics. Can 'bad' people do 'good' things? Yes they can, but they are still 'bad' people.)

Anonymous,
May 6, 2013 9:57 AM

I agree

I think calling abed "not a bad person" took the realness out of this article. He's a horrible person, whether he intends to be or not. Ignorance doesn't change that.

Samuel A,
May 6, 2013 7:43 PM

You are who you are in that moment

@Alan S... I see what you mean, but i have to disagree. Even though Abed was a 'bad person' in the moment he decided to drive again, that doesn't mean that his life is defined by this solitary choice. Maybe he's a wonderful father. maybe he saved someone's life by doing something else at another time. My point is that you can't define a person as 'good' or 'bad', only the actions they do. People have free choice, and always have a choice of doing good, even if they do mostly bad. Plenty of stories in the Gemara about this... and a famous one of someone who was bad all his life, then cried himself to death and was forgiven because it was true teshuva. did he die as a 'bad' person? i believe the gemara says he made it to Olam Haba (heaven) because his teshuva was accepted. So, he ended up being not only good, but great... and an example to us all.

Alan S.,
May 7, 2013 11:51 PM

I well understand that many things 'define' a person as good and bad. Can someone constantly do bad things, and then do a few nice things? Of course. But how do humans -- not HaShem -- see that person? So Abed is a good father and has to drive to support his family. Unfortunately, he kills or maims people -- not purposely, mind you -- but accidentally. What say you? That he's a heck of a nice guy because he's such a good dad, husband, provider? Please -- call Abed for what he is -- a terrible driver that should not have a driver's license. A good person, as I wrote above, would stop driving of his own volition. The bad person doesn't care what havoc he wrecks on society. G-d forbid he causes a death in your family, or maims someone in your family. I don't think you will think that he only acted 'in the moment'. This reminds me of the usual comments we read in the newspapers by the neighbors and family of mass murderers, i.e., how nice they were, how wonderful they were. How they were good to their mothers, shoveled the snow, etc. How it can't be that such a wonderful neighbor or son or whomever could have done such a thing.

I live in rural Montana where the Cholov Yisrael milk is difficult to obtain and very expensive. So I drink regular milk. What is your view on this?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Jewish law requires that there be rabbinic supervision during the milking process to ensure that the milk comes from a kosher animal. In the United States, many people rely on the Department of Agriculture's regulations and controls as sufficiently stringent to fulfill the rabbinic requirement for supervision.

Most of the major Kashrut organizations in the United States rely on this as well. You will therefore find many kosher products in America certified with a 'D' next to the kosher symbol. Such products – unless otherwise specified on the label – are not Cholov Yisrael and are assumed kosher based on the DOA's guarantee.

There are many, however, do not rely on this, and will eat only dairy products that are designated as Cholov Yisrael (literally, "Jewish milk"). This is particularly true in large Jewish communities, where Cholov Yisrael is widely available.

Rabbi Moshe Feinstein wrote that under limited conditions, such as an institution which consumes a lot of milk and Cholov Yisrael is generally unavailable or especially expensive, American milk is acceptable, as the government supervision is adequate to prevent non-kosher ingredients from being added.

It should be added that the above only applies to milk itself, which is marketed as pure cow's milk. All other dairy products, such as cheeses and butter, may contain non-kosher ingredients and always require kosher certification. In addition, Rabbi Feinstein's ruling applies only in the United States, where government regulations are considered reliable. In other parts of the world, including Europe, Cholov Yisrael is a requirement.

There are additional esoteric reasons for being stringent regarding Cholov Yisrael, and because of this it is generally advisable to consume only Cholov Yisroel dairy foods.

In 1889, 800 Jews arrived in Buenos Aires, marking the birth of the modern Jewish community in Argentina. These immigrants were fleeing poverty and pogroms in Russia, and moved to Argentina because of its open door policy of immigration. By 1920, more than 150,000 Jews were living in Argentina. Juan Peron's rise to power in 1946 was an ominous sign, as he was a Nazi sympathizer with fascist leanings. Peron halted Jewish immigration to Argentina, introduced mandatory Catholic religious instruction in public schools, and allowed Argentina to become a haven for fleeing Nazis. (In 1960, Israeli agents abducted Adolf Eichmann from a Buenos Aires suburb.) Today, Argentina has the largest Jewish community in Latin America with 250,000, though terror attacks have prompted many young people to emigrate. In 1992, the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires was bombed, killing 32 people. In 1994, the Jewish community headquarters in Buenos Aires was bombed, killing 85 people. The perpetrators have never been apprehended.

Be aware of what situations and behaviors give you pleasure. When you feel excessively sad and cannot change your attitude, make a conscious effort to take some action that might alleviate your sadness.

If you anticipate feeling sad, prepare a list of things that might make you feel better. It could be talking to a specific enthusiastic individual, running, taking a walk in a quiet area, looking at pictures of family, listening to music, or reading inspiring words.

While our attitude is a major factor in sadness, lack of positive external situations and events play an important role in how we feel.

[If a criminal has been executed by hanging] his body may not remain suspended overnight ... because it is an insult to God (Deuteronomy 21:23).

Rashi explains that since man was created in the image of God, anything that disparages man is disparaging God as well.

Chilul Hashem, bringing disgrace to the Divine Name, is one of the greatest sins in the Torah. The opposite of chilul Hashem is kiddush Hashem, sanctifying the Divine Name. While this topic has several dimensions to it, there is a living kiddush Hashem which occurs when a Jew behaves in a manner that merits the respect and admiration of other people, who thereby respect the Torah of Israel.

What is chilul Hashem? One Talmudic author stated, "It is when I buy meat from the butcher and delay paying him" (Yoma 86a). To cause someone to say that a Torah scholar is anything less than scrupulous in meeting his obligations is to cause people to lose respect for the Torah.

Suppose someone offers us a business deal of questionable legality. Is the personal gain worth the possible dishonor that we bring not only upon ourselves, but on our nation? If our personal reputation is ours to handle in whatever way we please, shouldn't we handle the reputation of our nation and the God we represent with maximum care?

Jews have given so much, even their lives, for kiddush Hashem. Can we not forego a few dollars to avoid chilul Hashem?

Today I shall...

be scrupulous in all my transactions and relationships to avoid the possibility of bringing dishonor to my God and people.

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